LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Monday stayed possible deportation of an Afghan national Saddam Hussain who married a local woman six years ago.

The court passed this order in a petition of Fauzia Muhammad who approached the court against the likely arrest and deportation of her husband and sought replies from the respondents by December 21.

Earlier, her counsel argued that his client a by-birth Pakistani citizen married to Saddam in 2017 and had two sons out of this wedlock. He contended that the petitioner's husband was also born and brought up in Pakistan. He said the police recently summoned the petitioner’s husband telephonically and asked him to leave the country as per the government policy against Afghan refugees.

The counsel told the court that the petitioner filed an application to the interior ministry for the citizenship of her husband, which had not yet been decided by the authority concerned. He said the petitioner’s husband should not be expelled from Pakistan till decision on her application. He, therefore, asked the court to direct the respondents not to deport/repatriate the petitioner’s husband to Afghanistan.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023